Greta recognized the uselessness of arguing. 'As you wish, child,' she said. 'But tonight I will bring wood for your hearth if I have to destroy the dining hall chairs to obtain it.'
'Take care not to get caught if you do,' Ilsabet responded. 'With so much unrest you might be taken for an enemy.'
Greta's round face grew pale. Ilsabet noticed it and hugged the woman. 'I was only joking, you old fool,' she said, troubled by the sudden thrill she'd felt at seeing the woman's fear. 'Now go. With half the household servants conscripted, I'm sure you have other duties. I can certainly dress myself.'
'The steam,' Greta ordered. Ilsabet sighed and lowered her head nearly to the water's surface, breathing deeply until the congestion in her lungs lessened. Then she stood in front of the mirror to arrange her hair.
Lady Lorena was fond of saying that Janosk's three children had each been given some special gift. Marishka, the eldest at nineteen, had inherited her mother's incredible beauty. Mihael, two years younger, had his father's rugged good looks and skill with weaponry, though it seemed that he would always be too thin to wield the heavier swords. And Ilsabet, almost sixteen, was the bookish one. Lorena listed her virtue with some regret, noting sadly that Ilsabet's intelligence had not made her a wit.
Ilsabet knew Lorena was right. She always had to weigh her words carefully before speaking, if she spoke at all. Ilsabet knew all too well that most nobles perceived her as plain and shy-perhaps even dim-witted.
But Ilsabet was certain of her worth. Her father reminded her of it often enough when he quizzed her about her lessons or stopped in when she was being tutored by Lord Jorani. Jorani praised her, too; he believed she would one day serve her brother as Jorani served her father-as advisor, family historian, and trusted friend.
Not a bad future, she thought. Better at least than an arranged, loveless marriage, such as her sister faced.
She plaited her thin blond hair in a single long braid and tied it with a red silk ribbon, then rushed down the winding stone stairs that led to the great tunnel and dining hall.
The tunnel dissected the lower floor of the castle and served as a link between the front gates and courtyard and the river. In times of need, soldiers could load supplies from land into barges to carry them downstream. When the tunnel was not in use, the doors were closed and the space used as part of the castle. The doors were of heavy oak, and their carvings depicted the history of the Obour family from the first baron to her grandfather, who had ordered them made.
She stopped at the top of the wide stone steps leading to the courtyard and looked across it to the iron gates.
The sharp spikes at the top were intended to keep enemies from scaling them. Now they served a more terrible purpose. Every spike held the head of an enemy-from the rebel leaders who had fought against the Obour family to the sympathizers from the villages to the few spies who had managed to infiltrate the castle itself. Ilsabet was fascinated by the number of women and children's heads mounted there. She felt an odd pride, almost a kinship in seeing them, in knowing that even children younger than herself could be so dangerous as to merit death.
'Ilsabet?'
She turned. Her father stood in the doorway. Though he'd stripped off his battle armor and bathed, she could see the brown bloodstains on his riding cape and the weary slouch of his head and shoulders. 'Father!' she cried, then rushed to him, hugging him tightly, inhaling the scents of sweat, and smoke, and death.
'Still happy to see me, after all I've done?'
'You did what you had to,' she responded. She took his hand and led him into the dining hall.
In honor of her father's presence, a small fire was burning in its huge stone hearth. The long table clos-est to it had been covered with a cloth. A plate of warm bread and fresh-churned butter had already been brought out, and a servant was just carrying in a bowl of sliced fruit. There would be meat and eggs as well. They might have a shortage of firewood, but there was no lack of food from the fertile farms to the south and east.
Five hundred years ago the Obour family had been no wealthier than the other farmers in the land of Kislova. With hard work and a little luck, the family gradually became its rulers. The structure that had become the Obour castle had been started three centuries before by Baron Mihael. Each subsequent ruler had altered and added to the original design-one an extra tower, another the huge outer curtain walls-leaving the dining hall the only part of the original structure.
A painting above the hearth portrayed the first Baron Mihael on his battle horse, sword in hand, ready to defend his lands and title. Since his time, the family had never been defeated. It was unthinkable that a handful of peasants could pose a threat now.
By custom, the duty of leading the baron to the table belonged to Lady Lorena, but the woman was undoubtedly upstairs making the final touches to her coiffure and dress, Ilsabet sat beside him, chatting happily, pleased to be given some time alone with him. When the others arrived, she yielded her seat to Lorena and moved to the farthest place at the table, as was fitting for the younger daughter.
While they ate, her father refused to discuss the battle, listening instead as Lorena detailed the petty problems of the household, the laziness of one of her maids. Afterward they drank herb tea while Baron Janosk told of the battles he'd fought. As Ilsabet had expected, his troops had won.
'We dismembered a hundred rebel officers last night,' he said. 'We'll behead a thousand soldiers today. We've ended the war simply by eliminating the supply of fighters.'
'But the men have sons, Janosk,' Lady Lorena said softly. 'Perhaps if you showed them some mercy they would come to love you as we do.'
'Silence!' he bellowed. 'Do you think I like being seen as a barbarian? There is no other way, I tell you. But I have been wise, that's why Mihael here has not been fighting at my side.'
'I'm old enough,' Mihael insisted. 'I should have training in what I'll need to know.'
'On an invading enemy, not your own people,' Janosk insisted. 'I'll be the one to destroy the last of the rebels and take on the burden of my people's hate. You'll keep your hands clean of this, and when I die and you inherit my title, the people will see you as their savior, Baron Mihael the Good.'
Mihael winced. 'But an Obour nonetheless,' he insisted.
'People will forget the past like the fools they are,' Janosk said, his patience obviously wearing thin. Mihael's face reddened and he looked down at his plate.
As the meal continued, Baron Janosk quizzed each of his children on what they had done in his absence. Marishka had begun a new tapestry, one far more intricate than anything she had tried previously. It showed Janosk mounted on his war-horse and carrying a shield with the family's symbol-dragon's teeth above an unsheathed, bloodied sword. Mihael had begun studying battle strategy with old General Noire, a man who had trained Janosk himself when he'd been a child.
'And your studies, Ilsabet?' Janosk asked, leaning forward so he could look at her sitting, ignored, at the end of the table.
'Jorani said that before he can teach me anything more, he wishes to speak to you,' Ilsabet replied sorrowfully.
'Did you ask him what that meant?' her father asked.
'No, but I doubt it is a good omen,' she said.
'We'll ask him together as soon as the meal is finished, all right?'
Lady Lorena rested a hand on her husband's arm. 'Don't you have to return to your troops?' she asked.
'Mot until this evening,' he replied. 'There's plenty of time for everything, beloved.'
The endearment was spoken with sarcasm. Lorena's expression grew remote, and the meal ended in near silence. After, Janosk and Ilsabet climbed the curving stairs of the great stone tower to the uppermost room where Lord Jorani lived and worked.
Scrolls and ancient tomes covered the walls and the huge wood table in the center of his workroom. Today, he was seated at it, quill in hand, recording details of the struggle being told to him by General Raimundi, a huge warrior with a weathered face and thin beard, who had accompanied Baron Janosk home from the battlefield.
A pair of hawks, tethered to perches near the windows, screeched a warning of their approach. Jorani turned, saw his master, stood, and made a deep, respectful bow.
Ilsabet knew that he would not have bothered with the gesture had the general not been there. Jorani was, after all, her father's closest friend.
